


The challenge

by JackieSBlake7



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 22:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7592443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackieSBlake7/pseuds/JackieSBlake7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Upon seeing the Liberator's treasure room Avon decides upon a new goal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The challenge

As Avon looked at the treasure room in the Liberator for the first time he was bedazzled, literally and metaphorically.  
Then came the realisation that it was not money, the security provided by it or the desire for it that motivated him - but the challenge of setting up the fraud.  
The challenge now was to see what the Liberator could do and what there was in the galaxy (including creating an actual example of the 'proverbial Orac' which was responsible for creating all the minor problems and challenges in the computer systems). This meant dealing with Blake - should he return from Cygnus Alpha. Jenna would not be a problem - as a pilot she would make the same decision as he given the choice between 'staying on the Liberator' and 'getting involved in administration.'  
Blake did return, and 'changing the Federation' and 'keeping the Liberator from being destroyed' were challenges of sorts.  
A "casual" remark on Avon's part on the subject indicated that Jenna could, in fact, probably be convinced when the occasion arose: Vila and, probably, Gan, likewise.  
Eliminating Blake directly was not in Avon's nature - which, Avon decided meant he had to get Blake actively doing something practical, possibly off the ship.  
As with devising computer programs, Avon decided, study of the literature and past examples approaching what was required was the best way of reaching a solution.  
An unguarded remark to a group of rebels about preferring the practicalities to administration led to Blake suggesting that Avon come up with a suitable plan of action and series of work related goals.  
A somewhat urgent-but-obscure message on one of Avon's discussion boards had led to a reply from "the real proverbial Orac." Fortunately the request for urgent medical supplies involving obscure batteries in payment was quixotic enough to appeal to Blake - while Avon decided to develop his own proverbial Orac.  
Orac pronounced development of the requested plan for a new Federation system a "suitable" (if only partial) use of its capacities. That it chose to argue back with Avon was only a minor, if sometimes interesting, annoyance which was more than compensated for by Blake being subject to a similar process with regard to his plans.  
Avon almost felt sorry for Blake after Orac's #very# long and #very# detailed explanation of why Central Control should be reprogrammed to suit the rebels' interests rather than destroyed, "which would apply even if it has, as seems to be the case, been moved elsewhere." Not wishing to be involved in Central Control or its successor was the reason for Ensor's abrupt departure from visible Federation view: Avon and the others agreed with this attitude.  
Orac was not amused, when in reply to its prediction that all present would die and the existing Federation system would be replaced by something different, Vila told it that he could predict that Orac would eventually have all its components changed, and be replaced by something better or different. Avon was already investigating the topic.

It took six months to establish a "new and improved" Federation set up. As far as Avon could work out, the main difference from the old, once the suppressant drugs and violence against the population had been removed, was that everybody felt free to openly criticise the system and suggest improvements. This included the Gammas and Deltas, whose organisations - set up, as far as Avon could see, for the entirely laudable aims of getting the most money for the least amount of work and keeping the authorities from interfering with more interesting activities, were complaining that the former rebels "were just another bunch of higher grade do-gooders who stopped when they had achieved their goals and satisfied their egos." Another critic of the new regime was Blake, who, only slightly sooner than Avon expected, had set himself up in opposition to the establishment again, as a provider of constructive criticism. Various of the other non-administratively-inclined former rebels joined him. The Federation old guard survivors were keen to promote their cause: namely to be restored to power, and if the population was kept quiet with the reforms, the money formerly used on suppressant drugs could be used for more useful ends, such as constructing decorative and very expensive presidential palaces.  
Avon had managed to extricate himself from the situation he found himself in when some of the more moral rebels had objected to his claims for expenses for investigating slush funds and other obscure accounts left over from the previous regime. This was, he suspected, partially sour grapes because they had not got there first: and he was duly grateful to Jenna devising a face-saving compromise based on similar events in Free Trader circuits. Avon, Vila and other people of "a constructive frame of mind" were slightly more careful in their rearrangements thereafter.   
As the political scene developed into a more exuberant form, and given the comments made about his and the others' activities, Avon decided to approach Blake with a proposal for future activities. Blake accepted the idea of a reformed and enlarged Liberator group exploring the galaxy and performing some feats of derring to with a not unexpected rapidity. The Ensors were happy for Aristo to be used as a base, and Orac repeatedly claimed that the variant computers developed using Zen's technology, with which it swapped between planet and ship was not the next advance.  
When Zen suggested that they look for further DSVs there was general agreement - not least because the various sentient computers were engaged in competitive development and exploration and not even bases the size of Terminal or Ultraworld were big enough for all of them.


End file.
